Obviously, the work says many things about its creators, but just as interesting are the reactions it provokes in its readership-whether joy or frustration or pleasure or groans or interest or rage. Its successes in these reinterpretations are varied, with some faring better with some readers than with others-there have been some understandable frustrations with the fates, expressions, and motivations of both female and male characters, depending on what a reader brings to the text.įables works well not just as Story As Story, but as a commentary on the contemporary reader. And it does indeed attempt to interpret their predilections through a number of contemporary filters. It does indeed follow the figures of numerous traditional faery tales, fables, nursery rhymes, and best-beloved stories. Still, since Fables is a wonderful series, its charms must lie elsewhere from the bland ingenuity of simply traveling well-trod roads.įables is, plainly stated, a wonderful series. So with Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham’s Fables, we can’t really find ourselves wowed by the ingenuity of exploring third-millennium expressions of old yarns-after all, it’s not as if it hasn’t been done often and recently.

Perhaps marked by the playfulness of postmodern revisitation, traditional narratives have seemed a ripe harvest for gleaning new meaning from old stock. Fractured faery tales and contemporary reimaginings of the classic fables have proliferated over the last several decades.

Fables - Book One by Bill Willingham